


Where He Is Now

by blackandwhiteandrose



Series: Everything She Said [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Crushes, F/M, M/M, Rose Apothecary (Schitt's Creek), blast from the past, david's lost years, excuse me are you a stalker, kinda fluffy maybe?, sometimes Patrick worries, story time, who is this person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackandwhiteandrose/pseuds/blackandwhiteandrose
Summary: "Fully expecting one of the usual suspects from around town who liked to pop in around this time of day, Patrick was surprised to find it wasn’t anyone he recognized.The uneasy feeling that had been slowly creeping up his spine became more insistent, harder to ignore."ORRose Apothecary gets an unexpected visitor on a day Patrick is working alone.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Everything She Said [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788763
Comments: 82
Kudos: 407





	Where He Is Now

Hearing the bell ring signaling someone had arrived in the store, Patrick flung the curtain aside, emerging from the project he’d been working on in the back room. Fully expecting one of the usual suspects from around town who liked to pop in around this time of day, he was surprised to find it wasn’t anyone he recognized. He watched the young woman trying to be subtle as her eyes darted around the space. 

“Hello, welcome to Rose Apothecary,” he said, and watched her startle, clearly not realizing anyone else was in the room.

She murmured something that could have been ‘hi’ or ‘hey’ or any number of monosyllabic responses. He started to ask if he could help her, but decided to wait it out and see if she seemed to be searching for something in particular. He tried to casually rearrange the breath mints and lip balms, while keeping an eye on her. 

He wished David was in the store with him, this girl was essentially David’s ideal customer, the kind of person he dreamed about walking around with a Rose Apothecary tote hanging off her arm. Patrick knew David would appreciate her aesthetic: the ripped skinny jeans, crisp white tee, and a sort of utilitarian black jacket with a pair of boots he was pretty sure were almost identical to a pair in David’s closet. Her platinum blonde hair hung long and loose in waves down her back. She was beautiful in a not-from-around-there kind of way that made him think she hadn’t come from any of the Elm-adjacent cities in the area. He briefly considered that Alexis would likely not describe her as “non-threatening”. 

Patrick watched as she moved around the store- quiet and graceful, her eyes seeming to scan every shelf and row of items, pausing on the displays to pay attention to the details of each arrangement. He was beginning to feel a little unsettled by the long stretch of silence and the extremity of her inspection of every facet of the store and the merchandise, except for Patrick himself. He finally asked, “Can I help you with anything? Is there something specific you need?”

She glanced over her shoulder, taking a long look at Patrick, with the kind of gaze he could feel as much as he could see. After what felt like an eternity to him, she finally asked, “Is David here?”

Patrick was surprised but somehow not shocked by her question. 

“No…. he’s meeting with a vendor today…” he said, hesitantly, wondering if he should be volunteering information or not. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She didn’t say anything as she rounded the corner of the display tables and moved closer to the cash register where he was standing. “You… run this place, with him, yes?”

“Yes…” The uneasy feeling that had been slowly creeping up his spine became more insistent, harder to ignore. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had dreams –nightmares, really – about things like this. That even after exchanging vows, knowing David had promised his whole life and heart to Patrick, someone would show up, someone that made a little more sense for David or looked like they belonged standing next to David, and would start to unravel everything they had. He was debating, if he should say more, or declare their relationship when she very clearly caught sight of his wedding band.

“You’re married.” 

“Yes to…”

“David.”

“Yes.” Patrick shifted behind the counter, uncomfortable with everything about this conversation. She clearly knew the answer before she asked, and he had a feeling that probably wasn’t the only thing she knew.

“So, you’re…. Peter? Parker?” she asked, snapping at the air with her silver-ringed fingers, like that was going to make the correct name fall out of her mouth. 

“Patrick.” He took a deep breath, everything about this was odd and getting borderline creepy. “Are you… a friend of David’s? I’d be happy to let him know you stopped by…” 

She ignored his question, and gave him the same intense study she had done with every item in the store. 

Patrick watched her eyes, dark under a heavy line of perfectly flicked eyeliner, scan slowly over him. It made sense, all of a sudden, what he couldn’t figure out about her methodical perusal: she was literally looking for David in everything the shelves and store had to offer. 

“Is he happy?” 

Of all the things he’d have guessed might come next, that would not have been one of them. He nodded, “Yes. Very.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, the slightest hint of a smile playing on the corners of her mouth.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but who _are_ you?” Patrick asked, unable to wait out this awkward exchange any longer. He was wavering between being sure she must be one of David’s ex-girlfriends or a stalker with questionable research skills and a long-play game plan.

There was another pause, as she appeared to sift through the options of how or whether she’d be answering that question. Eventually, she offered her hand to Patrick, “I’m Nico.”

Patrick took it and shook. “Nice to meet you, Nico.”

He wasn’t sure if it was actually nice yet or not, but he’d be pleasant until he felt like it was time to be… unpleasant. He didn’t recognize her name from any of the stories David had shared, which led him to believe she would not have been among the worst of his experiences. He thought he’d try one more time to get at least part of the story, “So, you came here to talk to David? Did he know you were going to come by?”

Nico laughed softly, “No. He didn’t know. We haven’t spoken in years.”

Patrick wasn’t sure if he should wait or prompt her to keep talking. When she didn’t elaborate anymore, he guessed, “New York?”

She nodded. “Yeah, yes. Um, the gallery.”

“David’s gallery?” He straightened up some, his curiosity piqued. The gallery was one of the only hazy areas left in David’s past. It wasn’t something that David liked to talk about and Patrick never wanted to push. 

Another affirmative shake of her head. “I was studying art at NYU. I used to… spend time there.”

Patrick was frustrated by the tiny pieces of information she was doling out, not giving him anything beyond the most succinct of answers. “Spend time? Like to hang out or …?” He let the question drift off, hoping maybe the open-end would lead to something more.

“I guess you could call it that. I was always interested in the exhibitions and it was usually a quiet place to sketch or plan a project. I liked the vibe. And I liked –“ She stopped herself, like she was just remembering who Patrick was again.

He knew the next word, though. “David.”

She couldn’t hide the blush across her cheeks. 

Patrick wondered again, if she and David had spent time together _outside_ of the gallery.

“We talked about the art, mostly, but sometimes it was other things like a trip he’d just taken or something. He was so cultured and I don’t know, experienced? I liked to listen to him. His life seemed so fucking … glamourous. Art and parties and celebrities. I guess, as a college kid, I thought that’s what the dream was, that kind of life, because he made it look so good.” Nico stopped talking for a moment, a faraway expression across her face.

Patrick figured she was right back there in the gallery, remembering David and caught up in the crush she’d obviously had on him. He wasn’t sure yet, if it was cute or not that years later, it was enough to bring her to Schitt’s Creek in search of him. 

She came back around, sighing. “But, he was so fucking sad all the time.” 

Patrick gave her his full attention again, this was the kind of thing that kept him up at night sometimes, wondering what David had left out of the stories he’d told. “Sad?”

“Yeah.” She started twisting a lock of hair around her finger, “Even when everyone thought he was happy or should have been at least. Like, when he was with Sebastien Raine. Even the pretentious avant garde kids who didn’t care about anything mainstream were obsessed with them because it was, I don’t know, witnessing the birth of a supernova or some other grand cosmic event with these two art society darlings. David had everything, right? The gallery, the boyfriend, and… and then I just remember seeing him come in one morning in clothes from the day before and he was crying…”

When Nico paused, Patrick realized he was almost holding his breath as she’d been speaking. He watched her pick at the black polish on her thumb nail, nearly desperate for her to continue. He didn’t know if he could or should ask questions or just let her volunteer what she was willing to share. “Wh-what happened?” he questioned, quietly, before he could think better of it.

“He saw me, like that I noticed him and I’ll never forget his face. He seemed kind of, you know, horrified at first and then just sort of … let it happen. Like it was this secret we shared now. He never said anything about it, but after that he… let me be around more. Like, I could stay for the private events at the gallery and sometimes he’d ask if I wanted to go to an after party or a club with whatever group of people were hanging onto him at the time.”

Patrick wished she’d just keep talking. She’d been there. A witness to what were probably many of David’s worst days. He wondered, suddenly, if David would want him to hear this, to know the things she was saying. She’d barely told him anything he didn’t already at least have an idea about, but if it was something David didn’t want to talk about, did that mean he shouldn’t be listening so intently to her? He was willing to apologize if he had to, but he needed to hear more. “Would you – did you go? With them? With him?”

Nico flipped her hair back over her shoulder, nodding again. “Yes. Anytime I could, I would. I wanted to see what that life was like and I wanted… I wanted to keep an eye on him.”

“Did you ever…” Patrick stopped, cringing at nearly asking. But he wanted to know just how well acquainted she was with his husband. “Did you and David ever, uh, hook up?”

“No.” The way she said it and the brief expression that flashed across her face made Patrick think she wished they had. “He kissed me once. But he was rolling so hard on so much E that night, I’m pretty sure he kissed everyone at the club, including the bathroom attendant. The closest I ever got to going home with him was shoving him in an Uber at the end of particularly reckless nights.”

Patrick tried to keep his reaction minimal. “Ah. Gotcha.” 

“That was one of the reasons I wanted to be around, though. He didn’t care what he was doing. He was _so_ messed up after that whole horror show with Sebastien, I was legit scared for him. And even though I wasn’t like, _close_ to him, it kind of seemed like I was the only person who was paying any attention. I knew his family wasn’t in the city and the people around him were like a revolving door, none of them stayed around long enough to notice. I know it sounds, I don’t know… stupid? Crazy?” She stopped, and kind of shrugged. “I was just a college kid, but I was worried about him. I felt kind of responsible or something, that he let me know a secret and I had to stay around and see it through. I just wanted him to be happy.”

As she spoke, Patrick was sure he understood her, why she was standing in the store with him. He recognized the look in her eyes, he’d seen it reflected in his own mirror so many times. He spoke very softly, “You were in love with him.”

The nod was so slight, he would have missed if he’d needed to see it to know the answer. “He was always nice to me and he had no real reason to be. I was basically just a random person hanging around his business and accidentally caught a moment I’m sure he would have rather I hadn’t. He was a good guy, he just got lost along the way, I think.”

Patrick felt his heart squeeze a little, knowing that David would have been astonished, if not marginally appalled that someone from that part of David’s life would call him not only a ‘good guy,’ but also _‘nice’_.

“And I… I always felt like he deserved better. I thought the Sebastien thing had destroyed him, but he kept going, kept showing up even when it seemed like he just wanted to go hide. I - I’d wanted to go say good-bye before I graduated, to thank him for not running me off when it really was about the art, at first, and maybe just to see him one more time… And then all of a sudden, the gallery was closed, and he was gone. Nobody knew where to until it was all over the news that the whole family had lost everything. I always wondered what happened to them, to him. I’d google him every now and then and never came up with much. But, I have family that lives in Elmdale and one of them told me about this place. Rose Apothecary. I wondered if it was him, it just sounded like something he’d do. I found the website and saw the pictures of you two… when I came up here to visit them, I had to stop.” She paused and looked at Patrick, “I needed to know if he had found a way to be happy.”

Patrick smiled at her. “He has. I promise.” On a whim, he pulled out his phone and showed her the lock screen, a picture that Alexis had taken when the three of them had gone to Los Angeles to visit Johnny and Moira. Alexis had been desperate to get to the ocean for some real salt water to work on her beach waves and they’d taken a trip out to Malibu to watch the sunset. Patrick was sitting on their beach towel, David between his legs, leaning back against him, Patrick’s arms wrapped around David’s waist. Patrick was whispering something in David’s ear and David was smiling radiantly, looking relaxed and content, like there was no place he’d rather be than right there. Patrick had both wanted to cry a little and hug Alexis for managing to capture such a perfect moment. He had hugged her and said ‘thank you’ more than once.

Nico smiled, the shift in her demeanor palpably signaling her relief. “Yeah, I definitely never saw that kind of smile. He looks _good_. Like, really good.”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” Patrick chuckled. 

Nico reached into her bag, fishing for her own phone, and doing some scrolling. She glanced at Patrick, clearly trying to decide if she wanted to show him something. “I don’t want you to think this is weird, but it might be too late for that already. I wanted to put this in my portfolio, but I never got to ask him if I could and I wasn’t going to do it without permission. But it’s probably… it’s one of the things I’m most proud of.”

The curiosity was overwhelming Patrick as she handed him her phone. His jaw dropped a little at the photo: it was Nico standing next to a large canvas, nearly as tall as she was, with a painting of what he immediately recognized was David’s face. He didn’t know that he would have known who it was in the minimalist portrait without context, though. The painting was only bold black brush strokes on the white canvas, the approximation of David’s features - his eyebrows, the Cupid’s bow of his lip, line of his jaw, and the upward swoop of his hair - still somehow obvious to someone familiar with his looks. It was clear that this was not the David he knew, the details harsher than they would be now. He was impressed, not only with her talent, but that she had cared about him enough to keep this masterpiece to herself out of respect because she couldn’t give him a choice about it. “This is amazing, Nico. Just really… phenomenal.” 

Her cheeks went pink. “Thank you.”

He was tempted to ask her to share the photo with him, but decided against it. That’s her version of David, not his. He took one more look and gave her phone back. “Was that for school?”

“Yeah. We were supposed to define “influence”. Like, what it meant to us. One of the guys in class set a bunch of hundred dollar bills on fire in a cage and someone else did this thing about celebrity culture being dead with pigeon bones and I showed up with this.” She laughed, out loud, for the first time in their conversation and Patrick had to smile at the sound, as well as the absurdity of what she was saying.

“So what was your definition?” Patrick prompted, wondering how David fit in.

Nico shrugged a little, “He influenced my life. The way I thought about art, how I saw people, and I mean, even my style… my whole aesthetic.”

Patrick wished so badly David was able to hear what she was saying. “How long are you here? I think David would love to talk to you...”

She cut him off, with a gentle shake of her head. “Just today, I’m on my way home. And I kind of think, it’s probably best that he wasn’t here, actually. What he’s got now is so much better than anything he had before, he doesn’t need someone from back then being a part of this." She said, as she gestured around the store. "I saw what I needed to, so I’ll just stay in the past where I belong.” She gave him a smile. “Thank you for today. I’m glad I got to meet you and get a glimpse of where he is now.”

“I should be thanking you,” Patrick said, quickly. “It’s nice to know someone was watching out for him, even when I’m sure he didn’t realize it. You probably… you’re probably part of why he made it through all that, so he could be here with me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She gathered her bag from the counter and dug out a business card. “If you guys are ever in New York and can think of an excuse to stop by, it would be awesome to see you both… together.” 

“Absolutely,” he told her, coming around from behind the counter. “Is…. Is it okay if I hug you?”

Nico didn’t say anything, but threw her arms around him like they’d been friends forever. After giving him a little squeeze, she pulled away. “Keep that smile on his face, yeah?”

Patrick grinned, “Literally my life’s goal.”

**Author's Note:**

> (thank you lanime17 for the reading and the thoughts)
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated! <3
> 
> https://blackandwhiteandrose.tumblr.com


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